So I setup a conversion job on my XP workstation to convert VM1 to an image on the external HDD. This works perfectly.

Then I setup the same job on the same XP workstation to convert VM2 to an image on the external HDD, that also works.

Then when I try to do exactly the same to VM3 I enter the login details and the name of the machine and it accepts that and moves onto the next stage where it asks for the UNC name for the image files (now this is exactly the same UNC path as the first 2 which worked perfectly but now I get the error "The specified directory \\PCNAME\SHARENAME\ does not exist"

Now of course the UNC name does exist and has worked perfectly for the first 2 with no issues, but won't do this machine, or VM4, but VM5 works perfectly........

Just to see what was going on I deleted the images for VM1 and VM2 I created earlier and recreated the converter jobs and on those servers they work no worries over and over, but for VM3 and VM4 servers I just get this error about the directory not existing..........

I'm confused !

I would have assumed that anything like a restart of the services or the XP workstation wasn't worth trying as the other servers convert perfectly, but I restarted it anyhow and no change.

When you specify the destination, the connection is done from the VM itself. It may be that this particular VM can't see the share as you specify it.
Login to VM3 and VM4 via RDP or Console, and check if you are able to access this share via exactly the same path as you type it in the converter?

Are those XPs are in the same domain or workgroup? Do you specify "connect as" in the converter or just connect by default? XPs in a same workgroup will try to authenticate by default using credentials stored locally, however, if those differ from other machines in the same workgoup the auth process will fail and converter display the message that directory doesn't exists.

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Alll of the machines are running Windows Server 2003 Standard SP2 with the same service packs.

Some of them are domain controllers and some are just domain members, but they're all on the same domain.

I'll give your tip about connecting to the VM consoles and see if I can get to the resource on the XP workstation. I have tried with no password and with passwords with no joy.

If I use an incorrect password I get an error saying something like "cannot connect to share" or "cannot find share" which I'd expect and then when I use the correct username or just leave it blank it changes to the message I posted originally, like it can see the share, but can't find the directory for some reason......... maybe permissions, but I'll do the direct connect thing and see what happens.......

Even though the machines are part of the domain they can also of course still use local accounts on the server for authentication, so it was just a matter of connecting to the server using the local administrator account and password and then using the connect as option to then connect to the XP Workstation running VMWare converter using the right username and password to authenticate properly.

Connecting to the local console and testing if I could connect to the XP Workstation wasn't really a true way to test things as windows will pass stored authentication possibly, but it pointed me in the right direction and also one of the 3 machines that was failing was having a seperate issue which confused things...... ! That's something seperate I'm going to have to resolve.

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